Live Daphnia Starter Culture

Description

Daphnia are small crustaceans that are very easily raised as feeders for other predatory aquatic pets and our live Daphnia starter culture comes with approximately 100 count living Daphnia. They are supposedly Daphnia magna, though I’m not perfectly convinced that anybody really knows the species.

Each female Daphnia can go from birth to producing babies in 8 days, and give birth to ten babies at a time.

Daphnia are a helpful foundational product for all aquatic insect tanks with predaceous diving beetles, backswimmers, and other predatory or scavenger insect pets, and their larvae. Daphnia also work to eat algae in the water column and therefore as a clean-up crew to some degree. In fact, if I have a tank where the water is starting to turn green, I simply drop in some Daphnia and they clear the water up very quickly. Their population will grow quickly to the degree that the water is green and then, when the water begins to clear, the population of Daphnia will dwindle rapidly.

And so many people purchase Daphnia simply to clean a tank that has gone green, but be sure to harvest some out as the water becomes clear, and so that you can keep them going in a tank of their own.

When they die, they too become food for other organisms in the tank including all the necessary little microorganisms that you may not even be aware are part of your tank’s natural ecosystem/equilibrium.

You can set up a working and sustainbly reproducing Daphnia culture in 1 to 5 gallons or so of water (tap water is usually fine but consider dechlorinating it for best results) and then sprinkle in a pinch of dry yeast or spirulina. We don’t use these food products anymore personally, since they will build up on the bottom of the container and can work to spoil the water to some degree. This means you end up having to do more work through weekly, partial water changes. Instead, we culture green water which is the best and healthiest option for Daphnia, especially if you are raising the Daphnia as feeders for other aquatic arthropods or fish, etc. As they eat through the green water in your culture tank, simply add more green water from your green water culture. It’s easier than it sounds, once you have your green water culture set up.

You can purchase green water separately on this site (see related products below). I’d really recommend you read about that product as part of your consideration/research in learning about Daphnia.

They are very prolific and the population will expand exponentially to the degree you are offering them food and keeping the tank relatively clean. It is best to not keep all your eggs in one basket and so experienced keepers will keep a few tanks of Daphnia going in case there is a problem at some point with one. Set up correctly, it is nearly impossible to ever run out of Daphnia or completely fail with them. Even if there is a set back at some point, you can quickly re-establish a new culture off just a few Daphnia since even newly born ones will reach maturity in a little over a week and begin that next generation.

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Daphnia feeders for aquarium #aquarium #aquatic #freshwateraquarium

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